This is very good news for those Gleeks hoping our favorite neglected New Directions members will get a little more screen time during Season 3 of 'Glee': Entertainment Weekly reports that two actors have been cast as Mike Chang's parents.

Tamlyn Tomita ('The Joy Luck Club') and Keong Sim ('The Last Airbender') will play parents to newly minted series regular Harry Shum Jr. in the third episode of the new season, which is scheduled to air Oct. 3. Mike Chang gets a back story? Awesome!

Now that Mercedes has a new boyfriend, we can only hope poor Tina won't be pushed to the backburner all year for a disappointing third time.

In other TV news ...

The lights are on, China, but we're not home -- or so Larry Wilmore thinks we should pretend.

The hilarious actor and "Senior Black Correspondent" for 'The Daily Show' (weeknights, 11PM ET on Comedy Central) dropped in to discuss Obama's presidency and the debt crisis with Jon Stewart.

Wilmore seems to think that the best defense is a good offense hiding place when China comes to collect on the $1.16 trillion America currently owes that country.

'Friday Night Lights' star Connie Britton is in talks to join NBC's freshman drama 'The Event.'

According to Deadline Hollywood, producers are actively wooing the Emmy-nominated star. The recurring role in development is that of a senator's wife who sets out to prove herself worthy of his seat when he unexpectedly dies.

Britton is the first choice for the role. The actress spent five years as Tami Taylor on the critically-acclaimed 'Friday Night Lights.'

In other TV news ...

• Larry Wilmore may be going from senior black correspondent on 'The Daily Show' to sitcom star. Wilmore has sold a pitch to NBC that would see him as the father of a family who become the subjects of a British documentary. [Live Feed]

• Prep your ears for Disney's 'Madison High,' it's bringing more singing teens to TV. The comedy project about tweens and teens who are working toward producing an original theater production based on their lives is from Lester Lewis and Paul Hoen. It's expected to go to pilot. [Deadline Hollywood]

• TLC ordered a new reality series called 'Bama Belles.' The one-hour series will premiere Dec. 6 and follow the everyday activities of rural Alabama women. [Variety]

'The Daily Show' (weeknights, 11PM ET on COM) featured Team Muslim (represented by Aasif Mandvi) versus Team Black (represented by Larry Wilmore). The two correspondents waxed sentimental on a few advantages of racism. Wilmore joked he was "envious" of Muslims. "People used to be scared of us, but now they're scared of him," he noted, gesturing to Mandvi.

"It can be fun," joked Mandvi. He shared a few gestures (particularly on airplanes) that he uses to scare strangers. Wilmore could relate: "I used to be able to just glare -- and white people would freak out. Man, those were the days."

More of our best of the decade coverage, which started on Tuesday. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about the best comedy shows of the decade.

Life is depressing. Wake up. Maybe eat some breakfast. Take a shower. Go to work. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Fortunately for us slobs, the glory of television has afforded us numerous opportunities over the years to break up the monotony, kick back, relax, and most importantly, laugh.

Clichéd as it sounds, it really is the best medicine, because even though you overslept your alarm, your boss was a jerk, and you stepped in gum while waiting for the subway, going home and seeing Peter Griffin fart, Michael Scott talk like a fool, and Barney Stinson hit on some broad always makes it all better.

So take a load off, kick off your shoes, and undo your belt to allow for maximum belly jiggling while chortling -- here are TV Squad's picks for the best comedies of the past decade.

Before we jump right into things, let's take a moment to think about just how amazing these past two weeks of Daily Show have been. The program has always been pretty solid, but both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention have provided beautiful fodder for both Jon and the correspondents, who seem to have finally hit their stride. This particular group of correspondents works best when they're all teamed up, and it really showed during convention coverage. From Jason Jones and Samantha Bee sucking face in front of hapless interviewees to Rob Riggle and Wyatt Cenac grillin' up some arugula in an elitist parking lot. TDS is taking another break next week and, boy, do they deserve it.

"The Heart of Hopeness": Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech the other night, to a stadium full of insanely excited Democrats. John Oliver filed a report live from the site of Obama's speech. Man, John has really been putting himself on the line this week, being incredibly annoying in front of so many overexcited people. I mean, chanting "Osama!" at a massive crowd of Obama lovers is almost a sure to bring about a beating, but he totally lucked out with some relatively mild verbal confrontation. Other great moments included dancing to Jeremiah Wright's "white friends" song and making his move on hot strangers. As we would see later in the episode, it seems like the Democratic National Convention brought out the friskiness in the correspondents.

"Guess Who's Coming to Denver?": The Daily Show is back! They'll be in Denver for the whole Democratic National Convention, workin' their shiny new set. It's pretty much just Jon's "j" desk and a whole lot of big screens hanging in the back. The gang was in full form, and I believe this was the most I've laughed at the show in a while. Perhaps it only feels that way because the show has been gone for a week and a Monday. Thank goodness they returned, because I was starting to get the shakes.

Proving once again that the Daily Show audience is willing to boo at just about anything Bush-related without really thinking about it, they managed to hiss at the mere mention that Bush is now officially our most well-traveled president. Come on, don't make the rest of us look like trained seals too. Anyway, the president tried to beat the rush by heading out to Beijing a few days before the Olympics and was met with -- hey, what a surprise -- protest and a bunch of angry Chinese people with adorably designed anti-Bush signs.

Almost as soon as I arrived in Beverly Hills for the press tour on July 13, I had an assignment: find a power brick for my laptop, which I had left behind in New Jersey. One frantic and sweaty trip to Radio Shack later, I was ready for my next assignment: a brief interview with The Daily Show's Senior Black Correspondent, Larry Wilmore.

Wilmore was on hand to promote Make 'Em Laugh, a wide-ranging PBS documentary series on the history of modern comedy that's set to air in 2009 (it was announced that day that Billy Crystal is hosting the series). Right after the interview, Wilmore was on a panel with two other documentary participants: original SNL writer Anne Beatts (whom I also interviewed) and comedian Richard Lewis.

I only had a few minutes with Wilmore, so I quickly moved on from the special to ask him about how he got the Daily Show gig after a career spent behind the scenes as a writer and producer (The PJs, The Bernie Mac Show). I also asked him what it's like to work on a show that's so influential on the political and news scene. The interview is after the jump.

"Obama Quest: The Legend Begins": I guess the political comedy world has decided that the go-to digs on Barack Obama will be about the pressures of his golden boy image. Unfortunately, I can't say my middle school days were spent quite the same way, dealing with people making fun of how awesome I am. There are definitely worse ways to be mocked, is what I'm saying. Anyway, Mr. Obama has made his way to the Middle East for the first time, providing the Daily Show graphics department with the opportunity to make the most freakin' epic clip to accompany the report. Awesome. This trip also gave the media a chance to eagerly await a major cross-cultural faux pas. As it turns out, Obama has fangirls and fanboys all over the world.

"Baracknophobia": The mainstream media likes to blame the blogosphere and Grandma's e-mail forwards for spreading ridiculous rumors about Barack Obama. I guess they've forgotten all that "Barack Obama is a secret Muslim" stuff that they've been spitting for the past year or so. And no, Obama wasn't sworn in with a Qur'an. Michelle Obama has been getting noise from the media for sounding mean too. I'll admit, it was kind of a sick burn when she made Stephen Colbert sing to her only to tell him that Obama's voice is better. I thought that clip of Fox News accusing Obama of plagiarizing Mario Cuomo was too ridiculous to be true, so I decided to dig up some footage that hadn't been cut up by TDS. Nope, still ridiculous.

John McCain wasn't the only one to have his medical history thrown into the spotlight. Barack Obama's doctor analyzed his health and released a one-page report on how muscular and lean he is. No, it's not nearly as long-winded nor as sexy as McCain's crazy 1,200 page report.

Still-President Bush (I think I will start referring to him as such, as well) paid a visit to the US Air Force Academy's graduation and had a little fun with some soldiers on this celebratory day. I'm surprised there weren't any MySpace poses in this collection of poses from the day. This would be so much more endearing if there wasn't always that underlying tone of evil in everything he does. I'm just sayin'.

Hey, hey, hey. Comedy Central's press site has updated Daily Show cast photos. This time, Aasif Mandvi has been included and Samantha Bee has been totally Photoshop'd to bits. I mean, I'm just assuming someone was trying to hide her growing baby bump and that Bee doesn't actually look so proportionately awkward and walk like a fembot. Be sure to take a look at those hi-res photos up close. It's time to update your TDS desktop anyway. I don't want to see anymore Dan Bakkedahl, okay?

(S03E19) I'm going to be speaking to Carter Bays and Craig Thomas tomorrow afternoon, and I think that one of the first questions I'm going to ask them is if Britney Spears is going to be a recurring guest on the show. It's starting to look that way, based on what we saw tonight; the way things ended, I can just imagine crazy Abby popping up once or twice per season, just to make Ted's life miserable. And since Brit Brit established the role, I'd imagine she'd come back and reprise it.

And that's not altogether a bad thing. Once she becomes part of the fabric of the show, the episodes will be less about her presence and more about the story. Somehow (heh), Brit pulls off the nutty stalker role well enough, and maybe her acting will get a bit more refined the more she appears. At least I hope it does.

Why am I prattling on about Britney? Because there isn't much more about this episode that really stood out.
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